Bakhtiniana, Rev. Estud. Discurso vol.9 número1

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138 Bakhtiniana, São Paulo, 9 (1): 138-156, Jan./Jul. 2014.

The Discursive Dynamics in Teacher Education: Authoritative

Discourse or Internally Persuasive Discourse?

/ A dinâmica discursiva

na formação de professores: discurso autoritário ou internamente

persuasivo?

Maria Cecília Camargo Magalhães Maria Otilia Guimarães Ninin Ângela Brambilla Cavenaghi Themudo Lessa ABSTRACT

This article, based on the socio-cultural-historical theoretical perspective, discusses the activity in which individuals engage as constitutive of the social roles they occupy. It aims to trigger discussion of discursive dynamics in the context of critical-collaborative teacher education, focusing on internally persuasive and authoritative discourse (BAKHTIN, 1981) and their co-occurrence in situations of negotiation of meanings. This distinction is relevant because it is possible to understand different argumentative enunciations or not, conducted by educators in training, which approach or distance themselves from those cast by their trainers or isolated voices of theoretical practice, indicating possibilities of creation or reduction of dialogic expansion. From the emphasis on internally persuasive discourse, this article highlights the critical - collaborative argumentation role in training educators. Examples selected from a corpus of research collected in public school in São Paulo subsidize the discussion supported by Bakhtin (1981) and Vygotsky (1998; 2001).

KEYWORDS: Authoritative discourse, Internally persuasive discourse; Teacher education; Enunciation; Dialogic expansion and contraction; Negotiation of meanings

RESUMO

Este artigo, apoiado na perspectiva teórica sócio-histórico-cultural, discute a atividade na qual sujeitos se envolvem como constitutiva dos papeis sociais que exercem. Objetiva desencadear discussão acerca da dinâmica discursiva em contextos de formação crítico-colaborativa de professores, focalizando os discursos de autoridade e internamente persuasivo (BAKHTIN, 2010) e sua coocorrência nas situações de negociação de significados. Tal distinção constitui-se relevante por permitir compreender diferentes enunciados argumentativos ou não, proferidos por educadores em formação, que se proximam ou se distanciam daqueles proferidos por seus formadores ou por vozes teóricas isoladas da prática, indicando possibilidades de criação ou diminuição da expansão dialógica. A partir da ênfase no discurso internamente persuasivo, procura-se destacar o papel crítico-colaborativo da argumentação na formação de educadores. Exemplos selecionados de um corpus de pesquisa coletado em escola pública de São Paulo subsidiará a discussão, por sua vez, apoiada em Bakhtin (2010) e Vygotsky (1998; 2001).

PALAVRAS-CHAVE: Discurso internamente persuasivo; Formação de professores; Enunciação; Expansão e contração dialógicas; Negociação de significados



Pontifícia Universidade Católica de São Paulo – PUC/SP, São Paulo, São Paulo, Brazil; CNPq; cicamaga@gmail.com



Universidade Paulista – UNIP/SP, São Paulo, São Paulo, Brazil; otilianinin@terra.com.br 

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139 Bakhtiniana, São Paulo, 9 (1): 138-156, Jan./Jul. 2014. Introduction

This article focuses on Continuing Teacher Education (teachers, coordinators

and directors) as reflective practitioners, in school contexts, in the relationship between

academia and the public school. Founding the research on projects developed by

participants of the Research Group LACE - Language in Activity in School Context, the

focus is on the understanding of the organization of language as constitutive of critical -

collaborative production of meaning in the interactions between the participants of the

training activities.

Inserted into a socio-historic-cultural theoretical perspective, this research is

based on the writings of Vygotsky (1998; 2001), discussing the fundamental role of

language and dialectical relations embedded in social practices in the historical unit,

society and culture for the constitution of humans, which emphasizes the concepts of

otherness and dialogism. It is also supported by the discussion of Bakhtin‟s dialogism

and otherness in the self–other–others relation, in social, historical, and cultural contexts

as enablers which widen enunciative places, in the multitude of voices of polyphony

and in the configuration between what is said and how it is said, that “each and every

word expresses the „one‟ in relation to the „other‟” (VOLOŠINOV, 1986, p.86). Brait

(1997) points out that, on the one hand, Bakhtin‟s dialogue is defined in general as an

adversarial relationship between the different discourses of participants in interactions “that shape a community, a culture, a society” (p.98)1 and, on the other, it refers to the “relations established between self and other in discursive processes historically established by the subject, which establish it and are established by these discourses”

(p.98). 2

The structure of this article was designed to critically understand the ways in

which argumentative organization of language, in the relational movement between

participants of the formation discourses, enable contradictory understandings to be

reflected in the relationship between theory and practice and on the

socio-historical-cultural bases that support it. Therefore, we aim at the development of an informed and

intentional act (agency) by the educator in the contexts of teacher training as well as the

1

Text in original: que configuram uma comunidade, uma cultura, uma sociedade. 2

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understanding of how authoritative discourse and internally persuasive discourse

(BAKHTIN, 1981) co-occur in situations of negotiation and of meaning production.

The discussion in this respect are of fundamental importance for this article, since it

allows us to understand how participants in training contexts advance in their

understanding of ways of acting on the relationships in the school environment and how

issues of power that affect the way their voices are neutralized in discursive situations

that, although seeming to be internally persuasive, help to disperse the situation of

negotiation. It is important to remember that for both Vološinov and Vygotsky “Any

true understanding is dialogic in nature. Understanding is to utterance as one line of a

dialogue is to the next. Understanding strives to match the speaker‟s word with a

counter word” (VOLOŠINOV, 1986, p.102; emphasis in original). Therefore, we

question (1) what it means to build critical collaborative contexts (2) how discourse is

organized in these contexts. The discussions about the organization of language for

building critical collaborative contexts are supported by data from projects developed

by participants of the Research Group LACE.

1 The Argumentative Organization of Language in Critical Collaborative Training Contexts

Much has been discussed about how researchers and school professionals can,

from training proposals that share the knowledge of the university and the school

contexts, create environments that re-signify understanding and praxis: Firstly, by

rethinking and restructuring the courses for educators and the creation of enabling

environments for future professionals to understand the theory-practice relationship

from the praxis; secondly, by revisiting the concepts of teaching and learning for, based

on a conception of language as constitutive of the subject, establishing discussion

forums that promote dialogue among professionals.

As Magalhães (2011, p.13) says, there is a pressing need for “extension projects

and/or research in the school context, whose goal is to create collective spaces for

learning and development.”3 The question that arises here is how to go into the school

context and establish bonds that foster the construction of critical-collaborative

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relationships so that participants in both contexts understand their experiences, concepts

and values, situating them in a socio-historical-cultural and political framework that

enables development. In this respect, the critical-collaborative research (PCCol),

emphasized in this article, highlights the ways of questioning the responsible for the

discursive organization, in an intentional perspective, allowing them to look critically at

and understand the socio-historical bases that support their actions, choices and their

meaning. This understanding of the discursive action gives way to a discussion that

favors acting beyond ourselves (NEWMAN, 1996, p.36) in a socio-historical

perspective.

Thinking and acting, as already pointed out, does not exist in vacuum, in the

micro school context, but it is an act always inserted in a macro context, in enunciative

relations, situated in socio-historical contexts of the experiences of the participants. As

Bakhtin points out,

Our speech, that is, all our utterances (including our creative works), is filled with others' words, varying degrees of otherness or varying degrees of "our-own-ness" [...] These words of others carry with them their own expression, their own evaluative tone, which we assimilate, rework, and re-accentuate (1986, p.89).

Thus, the more those involved consider the object under discussion in their own

utterance and the others‟, the more chances there are to reach new possibilities of

understanding. In this respect, Smyth (1992) had already argued that the authoritative,

hierarchical and transmissive organization of the school functions as a “straitjacket” for

the participants as their ways of being, thinking and acting are related both to the

scenario that each brings within themselves, as a result of their own history, and to the

tension that emerges from the schools‟ daily social-historically situated contradictions.

As this researcher points out, even if the curriculum is focused on the formation of a

critical - reflective professional, the context, usually transmissive formations, the focus

on individualism, the issues of power and the spatiotemporal organization of the school

constitute a situation of enunciative impediment for changes to occur.

Therefore, there is a neutralizing movement in the school that needs to be broken

to make way for a space in which discursive exchanges foster the development of

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which the researchers and participants of the schools organize the language of

relationships to understand the historically crystallized practices and transform them

into instruments for negotiating meanings in training situations. In other words, the

focus is on ways of interacting and organizing speech for the production of new

meanings in relationships. Such considerations are highlighted by Vygotsky‟s (2001)

discussion on the construction of dialectical and dialogical relations for socialization

and questioning of the socio-historically constituted senses of the participants. The

objective is, as Vološinov points out (1986), to provide the means by which their own

discourse and the others‟ and their speech may be intentionally understood through

otherness.

Vygotsky's discussion on the role of formative intervention emphasizes the

importance of understanding how language is produced and produces relations between

human beings and how human production affects and is affected by the participants in

these relationships (VYGOTSKY, 1998). In this perspective, the discursive dynamics

has as its central question the ways to critically negotiate/collaborate meanings,

highlighting the contradiction as a driving force for the development between

participants with different social, historical, cultural and political constitutions. As

Liberali and Magalhães stress,

The context that supports the understanding of senses and sharing of meanings is cognitively and affectively complex, as in relating to each other through shared meanings, humans are selecting, adapting, reducing, expanding their senses so they can find ways to act collaboratively. This is the essence of collaboration: Taking risks as understanding the sharing of meaning as an exercise of conflict, sharing, ownership rejection, acceptance, confrontation and combination of the various senses exposed by the group. As pointed out by Moran & John-Steiner (2003), it is the history, culture and society acting as a constraint and as expansion of each one (2009, p.45).4

4_{Text in original:}_{O contexto que apoia a compreensão de sentidos e compartilhamento de significados é}

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In other words, for Vygotsky, collaborating involves a dialectical movement

between participants, socially, historically and politically constituted, in the contexts of

their experiences as intentionally responsible for overcoming limitations, individualism

and alienation. It is important to remember that the Vygotskian focus was on the school

and on the discussion of the establishment of zones of proximal development (ZPD)

that enabled this dialectical movement in which the participants acted to understand

each other and create contexts for dealing with divergent ideas.

Magalhães and Fidalgo (2007) show that, in a complementary manner to

Vygotsky, Vološinov (1986) emphasizes language as socially constituted by different

forces and voices that involve multiplicity and struggle, linguistically marked at the

enunciation, as a semiotic tool that enables us to understand the responsive actions of

the participants related to utterances of others in a specific communication sphere.

Holquist (1990, p.40) points out that Bakhtin assigns dialogical characteristics of

language in context as in a battlefield of meanings constructed by the participants of the

discourse.

Thus, in both perspectives, language is not just an instrument of transmission but

the constitution of the self and of the other in social-historical inserted discourses. The

discourse, in that context, consists of multiple voices and the process of meanings

production is laden with tensions, since it is always contradictory, as it is done from the

social place that every human being occupies in a discourse community. As Bakhtin

points out (1981, p.280), “The word in living conversation is directly blatantly, oriented

toward a future answer-word: It provokes and answer, anticipates it and structures itself in the answer‟s direction.” In other words, an enunciation situation is not neutral, but it is guided by the speaker to a given audience and, by enunciating, that speaker idealizes

possible interlocutors and possible answers to his enunciation. In the contexts of teacher

training, this aspect is evident when, for example, the trainers‟ discourse is taken by the

participants and reframed or reproduced by them.

As stated by Brait (1997), social values are always in confrontation whatever the

communication situation is, allowing us to understand them from the perspective of “Plurilingualism,5 from the conflicts within the same system and the different existing

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records within that complex,” and in the dialogism perspective in its double dimension: “permanent dialogue not always symmetrical and harmonious, exists between different discourses that shape a community, a culture, a society [...] and the relations established

between the self and the other in discursive processes historically initiated by the subject”(p.98). 6

Considering the way, in the discursive dynamics, in which the voices come into

contact, Bakhtin establishes two categories for the word of others and says:

Another's discourse performs here no longer as information, directions, rules, models and so forth-but strives rather to determine the very bases of our ideological interrelations with the world, the very basis of our behavior; it performs here as authoritative discourse, and an internally persuasive discourse. [...] The struggle and dialogic interrelationship of these categories of ideological discourse are what usually determine the history of an individual ideological consciousness (1981, p.342).

By authoritative discourse we understand that monologic discourse that seeks to

impose itself in relation to others, without openness to questioning, negotiation of

meanings, with well-demarcated hierarchical characteristics. It is a discourse that “approaches us from without; it is distanced, taboo, and permits no play with its framing context (Sacred Writ, for example). We recite it. It has great power over us, but only

while in power; if ever dethroned it immediately becomes a dead thing, a relic”

(BAKHTIN, 1981, p.424). The internally persuasive discourse shows openness to the

dialogical relations, seeking the expansion of meanings. Bakhtin emphasizes that the

authoritative word “enters our consciousness as a compact and indivisible mass” (1981,

p.343), while the “internally persuasive discourse - as opposed to one that is externally

authoritative - is, as it is affirmed through assimilation, tightly interwoven with „one's

own word‟” (1981, p.345).

word uttered in that place and at that time will have a meaning different than it would have under any other conditions; all utterances are heteroglot in that they are functions of a matrix of forces practically impossible to recoup, and therefore impossible to resolve. Heteroglossia is as close a conceptualization as is possible of that locus where centripetal and centrifugal forces collide; as such, it is that which a systematic linguistics must always suppress.”

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The internally persuasive discourse is organized as “half-ours and half-someone else‟s” (BAKHTIN, 1981, p.345) and its creativity consists precisely in organizing, in a given context and under socio-historically tensions imposed by it, this mass of our

words and others forming a new discourse still and always unfinished, but dialogical.

Discussing this discourse, Bakhtin (1981, p.348) points out that “One's own discourse

and one's own voice, although born of another or dynamically stimulated by another,

will sooner or later begin to liberate themselves from the authority of the other‟s

discourse,” acquiring new form and meaning in the social world.

In training activities the knowledge of the educator and researcher come into

ideological conflict, being from scientific or everyday sphere, to organize into new

knowledge and new meanings, influenced by a discourse of authority that is present,

often by the research trainer himself/herself, from the way theories are presented, but

also by internally persuasive discourse triggered by both the trainer and by participants

of the interactive activities. The extent of these discourses depends on the ways in

which a participant will be able to signify their practice and their theoretical

conceptions, as the spaces for the argumentation and negotiation of meaning may be

broad or narrow. The authoritative discourse of the trainer, for example, can be

understood by the participant/educator as a sole and absolute truth with regard to

pedagogical decision making, working as a muting/neutralizer of the participant‟s voice,

removing opportunities for negotiation of meaning to occur on socially and historically

situated conflicts and contradictions.

The discursive issues discussed in this section concern us, since the contexts

created for the conflicts to be worked on are directly related to the ways the arguments

organized or not the language in negotiation situations. The focus on the authoritative

and internally persuasive discourses allows us therefore to proceed to the understanding

of the discursive dynamics occurring in activities in school contexts connected to

LACE's research group, as already indicated in the introduction.

2 The Discursive Dynamics in Teacher Training

In this section, the discussion of arguments as enablers of building internally

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understanding of the subjects on activities they develop in order to reframe them. The

examples, selected from research in two contexts, reveal the discursive dynamics

present in teacher training contexts, showing how language is structured, how and what

questions drive the argumentation and negotiation of meanings.

2.1 The Discursive Dynamics in the Context 1

In the first example,7 selected from the research conducted in two public schools

in the Greater Sao Paulo area that work in partnership - directors and coordinators of

both schools in fortnightly meetings - the focus of the discussion lies in internally

persuasive discourse. Questions developed over the discussion and the ways in which

each participant shows the internalization of the voice of the other, articulating it in their

own speech.

The presented data were collected during the development of a research that

aimed to discuss the critical -collaborative research within school management. Two

directors and two coordinators were involved in the research, working together,

sometimes in a school and other times in the other, in 2005, for the purpose of

reorganizing the school context to a critical - collaborative approach to action.

The passage selected is from a meeting between the two directors, one

pedagogical coordinator and the researcher, initiated by a controversial question that

triggers the presentation of argumentative utterance seeking to critically understand the

meaning of to delegate in the school context.

Excerpt 1

D12 What do you mean when you tell us to delegate to others? We have already discussed this, but it is important to us.

P3 What do you guys think? What is to delegate?

C1 Well, to delegate is to tell someone to do something for us. To tell, no.To ask.

It‟s better. Wasn’t it this, D2?

P4 So let's think about this. You said tell, and then you switched to ask. Why did you switch?

C2 Because it‟s a little unethical to tell, isn’t it? And a little unpleasant. It's not because I'm the coordinator that I can tell people to do things.

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P5 But let's think about what the language is saying to us. If we consider those three aspects of reflection - technical, practical and critical - how is it to delegate?

D23 Hum, P, it is quite difficult. [...] I think the technical aspect would be to tell people what to do and which way I want it done. (Laughs) I‟m one of the technical

guys. I‟m always bossing people around ... In the practical aspect, it would be to let the person do it his/her way, I think, and critical / critical / I still don‟t know.

P6 Great. So let‟s thereafter think: How would that be if we considered that we are worried about this critical issue?! You do not want to order, command, compel

the person to do something. And you also do not want to abandon the person, let the person suffer to do so and then you will see if it's alright... Is it possible for you follow what the person does? You guys remember when we talked about this?

C3 Well, it could be as you told us, some time ago, about giving a job to someone and following the process in which that person does that task, because there you will see how the person does it and if they know or not know how to do it, if they have difficulties or not, and help, if needed, to learn what they can learn to do it alone and, in his/her own way. I had never thought of that, to follow them like this.

D13 This can be good, because then we will get what we have talked a lot about, that is, to have a school where people participate more. That isn’t that autonomy, P? Even the community could participate more and it would be so good for the school, P. [...]

The negotiation of meanings begins at the moment D1 (in D1₂) creates a space

for argumentation, presenting a question that arises from another one submitted by the

researcher and for which there doesn‟t seem to be a shared meaning. The discursive

organization present in this excerpt appears in the form of questions in its modalized

form (NININ, 2013) and plays the role of opening spaces for the voices of the

participants to give new points of view or toarticulate their voice into the others‟. The

movement generated by modalized questions favors the insertion of questions (What do

you guys think?) of divergent views (Why did you switch?), the presentation of another

argument (how would that be if we considered that we are worried about this critical

issue?!), giving confidence to the respondent in the sense of his/her not feeling

previously assessed. The utterances delivered by the researcher continue to be

interrogative, not providing answers for the question presented in D1₂. What we have,

therefore, is the creation of opportunities for the participants to seek explanations for the

conflict initiated.

Observing the participant C, in C₂, who asks for confirmation of her opinion to

the researcher (Because it’s a little unethical to tell, isn’t it?), it is possible to infer that

the discourse of authority is known by her: The one crystallized in the school

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the others can and should do. It‟s also worth noting that the researcher uses a

hypothetical situation discussed earlier (in P₅, If we considered…), of a modalized

question and of a question that seeks to recover previous discussion (in P₆) to trigger a

discussion that aims at finding the meaning of to delegate attributed by the participants.

What we find next is a discourse that starts as authoritative (C₃- as you told to us) but

seems already transformed into internally persuasiveby the participant. It is authoritative

because it was presented as an "untouchable monument, which must be accepted,

assimilated and repeated " (ROJO, 2008, n.p.). 8 In this regard, Bakhtin (1981) points

out that despite the profound difference between internally persuasive discourse and the

discourse of authority, they can, rarely, unite in a single word, at the same time

authoritative and internally persuasive: "the authoritative word [...] that does not know

internal persuasiveness, in the other internally persuasive word that is denied all

privilege, backed up by no authority at all, and is frequently not even acknowledged in

society [...] not even in the legal code" (p.342).

The internally persuasive speech stands out also in the interactional sequence

C₃and D1₃, when the participant C retrieves the meaning of follow, referring to a way to

collaborate with someone on the development of his work, in a critical perspective -

because to follow here means to provide a learning context for yourself and others - and

also when D1, appropriating the voice of C, increases the significance (in D13 - This

can be good).

Bakhtin sees a decisive significance in the evolution of individual consciousness

to the extent that the person distinguishes his/her own speech from that of others, from

his/her own thoughts from those of others (BAKHTIN, 1986). In the example

discussed, there is a constant discourse movement that starts from fixed meanings which

seek, in the dialogic interanimation, to be articulated into other voices. The structure of

this discourse, therefore, is open, not finite, revealing that the context of participants

exerts influence to meaning. Thus, the word of the other, which initially characterizes as

authority, acts as a starting point, as a strategy to think and, therefore, to trigger the

negotiation of meanings.

The example that follows, retrieved from the same training activity presented in

excerpt 1, allows us to stress the internally persuasive discourse and its argumentative

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character. The discussion alternates between participants who have differing

viewpoints, looking for some negotiation. What we have in this utterance situation is a

discussion triggered by the need to understand the theory-practice relationship, based

initially on the authoritative argument presented by D2 when seeking support in the

voice of the researcher. The discussion occurs between three participants: Two directors

and a pedagogical coordinator, without the intervention of the researcher.

Excerpt 2

D26 P, is that related to / that’s socio - constructivism, isn’t it? Because I remember when we did that activity with learning theories, when we talked about mediation.

C7 Vygotsky, right, P. We‟ve already read a lot about him. In the trainings, they are always giving texts about that and there is a lot about it in the PCN. You know that this was all in the exam that teachers took, right? They talked a lot about this at the

time, but I guess it’s not enough just to talk. And they need to know how to apply it.

D29 No, C, but I think it doesn’t help giving them theory to read. We have to study it all, and we have to go and do things during HTPC, using things to discuss about that so that later they can relate them to their practices.

C8 Yes, that’s true, D1. You are right. This reading text thing is not something that works well during HTPC, because they like practical things. We have already

seen this, right? And in the review they said that too. I don‟t know if you remember, but

in the review they said they wanted to study many things. These things that we use during HTPCs now. And there is, why, they asked for projects, they asked interdisciplinary, text production techniques. All this is related to socio - constructivism,

isn’t it?

Intertwining ways of thinking about pedagogical practice at school, the

participants bring to their discourses voices of others present in earlier times of training,

but with a view for advancing their understanding of the meanings. While pointing to

the practices as socio-constructivist (in D2₆), they show the contradiction,

socio-historically located, which reveals a mistaken or simplistic understanding of the

relationship between theory and practice, signified only from the identification of the

theoretical framework, as in D2 - that’s socio-constructivism, isn’t it?; or in the

arguments that reveal points of view, as in C₇- They talked a lot about this at the time,

but I guess it’s not enough to just talk. And they need to know how to apply it; or even in the argument in D1₉- but I think it doesn’t help giving them theory to read. This

contradiction is still present in the arguments revealed in the voice of C (in C₈), when

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150 Bakhtiniana, São Paulo, 9 (1): 138-156, Jan./Jul. 2014. wanted to study. There seems to be an authoritative discourse emanating from practices

already introduced at school which, somehow, is dictated by the current educational

paradigm –what‟s important is to be socio-constructivist; on the other hand, there also

seems to be a movement to understand this authoritative discourse and make it

internally persuasive - in the sense that "being socio-constructivist" should be reframed

in the school. For Bakhtin,

Authoritative discourses may embody various contents: authority as such, or the authoritativeness of tradition, of general acknowledged truths, of the official line and other similar authorities. These discourses may have a variety of zones (determined by the degree to which they are distanced from the zone of contact) with a variety of relations to the presumed listener interpreter (the apperceptive background presumed by the discourse, the degree of reciprocation between the two and so far (1981, p.344).

In other words, the ways in which each participant in the discursive dynamics

attributes significance to these authoritative words are related to their socio-history, the

context in which it operates and the relationships established with other participants in

this context. In Bakhtin's view, the consciousness of the participants involved in the

discursive dynamics awakens, not in isolation or independently, but as part of a world

which is populated by the words of others.

2.2 The Discursive Dynamics in the Context 2

It is also in our interest to discuss training moments which are characterized,

somehow, as promoters of argumentation, but, due to the very discursive dynamics, the

internally persuasive discourse seems to disperse the negotiation situation of meanings

and, thus, the possibility of argumentation, giving rise to the authoritarian discourse that

requires, as Bakhtin points out (1981, p.343), “unconditional allegiance.” The next

example, 9 selected from a training meeting, in a project involving researchers, policy

staff and faculty of a Full-Time State Primary School - EETI, emphasizes this question.

The participants are two researchers, F1 and F2, the director, her deputy, about 10

teachers and a coordinator C,who, in the beginning of the project, was a literacy teacher.

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The focus of discussion is on the reflection on a reading practice crafted in one

of the training meetings, focusing on the discussion of the reading process and the

choices made by the researcher in this practice experienced by the participants. The

selected excerpt begins with the statement of one of the trainers (F1), seeking to resume

a previous discussion.

Excerpt 3

F11 Students need to learn the processes of reading and writing, that‟s what

we're doing here... so they take control of the text organization, and if it‟s a narrative or a description ... and this is a central issue ...we'll discuss here about everything we did last class. What we did was to focus on the process of reading and writing, and what process that is. Can we resume that?

F21 We present this little book here, you guys got to know of this book? C1 But we talked about it during HTP.

F22 You talked about what during HTP?

C2 I talked about the text, talked about the front cover/and/how it was presented by the illustration first /and/then the type of text, vocabulary, right? All the dynamics that you guys presented / I took them to HTP.

F12 But why doing this, did you tell them?

C3 ... no, I didn’t.

F23 You guys remember, I can ask those who were here, right? C is resuming what

was shown: First the images, right? Then we read the power point slide; what happens there was one thing we did, as C told us, we were trying to figure out the whys of things, instead of simply repeating this activity another way; to analyze, we will think of what would be a planning process that a teacher would do to plan these activities?(... ) So, I'll show you guys a power point presentation to recover the

planning process of the activity, not the activity/it‟s the planning, how can a teacher think in order to organize the activities? Why doing it one way and not another?

C4 On that part where she goes from a narrative of the stanza, we commented that

we would not do everything, but I don‟t remember exactly why [do what he did]?

F24 Ahhhh! That question you will/will think of it, what we can say now is that this is an earlier question and perhaps halfway you will find it out.

F25 So, the first question that we made was / why did you choose the narrative poem "The secret of gecko?”Then, it‟s / guessing / N, as if you were interviewing the person that did it, and you ask /why did you choose the narrative poem? Before I tell her the criteria, do you want to think about why you think she was thinking when she did it?

At the beginning of the extract, the statement made by F2 as a complement to

F1‟s (We present this little book here, you guys got to know of this book?) trigged an

authoritarian discourse. In response to C₁(But we talked about it during HTP), already

introduced by an adversative - to justify an action possibly agreed on for HTP - and thus

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(You talked about what during HTP?), which, presented abruptly, breaks the affective

relationship and suggests an evaluative dialogue that creates tension. It is characterized

as authoritative in the sense that there is a single form, a fixed discourse that cannot be

modified to be presented on the book in question, one taken as correct response based

on a previous discussion. And this is what happens when we look at what C₂says (…All

the dynamics that you guys presented / I took them to HTP.) in response. In other

words, C₂understands what F2 is saying as an imposition, and more: The voice of F2 has

become an unquestionable truth to be passed on to teachers. Such imposition that marks

an asymmetry of roles among the participants of the training group imposes a distance

between them, minimizing the space to agree/disagree, to expose views and negotiate

them. The strength of this type of statement is precisely on making the other party

accept and not question what is said.

The discursive dynamics of the sequence presented does not allow space for

participants to describe actions more clearly, express doubts and disagreements about

what was done by the researcher and for the contradictions about what had been done in

Collective Hours – teachers‟ training area. Disregarding the coordinator‟s response, C₃

(no, I didn’t) is revealed in the subsequent proposal for F23 on the purpose of the task

to be performed.

As pointed out by Magalhães (2011), Vygotsky‟s discussion on the central

importance of language as the organizer of dialectical relationships among participants

in discussion in the school context in order to create collective spaces for learning and

development has no place in this dialogue. Instead of creating a space in which the

coordinator presented her understanding of the reproductive process given by the

repetition of the act of the researcher, what we have here is an authoritative discourse

that inhibits the advancement of the participant, as there is no place for stating the

reasons for the choices that led them to consider the action of the researcher as an action

to be repeated. What we have here, in other words, is the consideration of an action

hierarchically imposed, making the space for discussion and critical learning diluted.

In F2₃, we highlight an interesting way to present an authoritative discourse as if

it were internally persuasive. Observing, for example, the passages in which F2 says

"we will think of what would be a planning process that a teacher would do to plan

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153 Bakhtiniana, São Paulo, 9 (1): 138-156, Jan./Jul. 2014. process of the activity,” and “how can a teacher think in order to organize the

activities? Why doing it one way and not another?,” it seems that the trainer suggests a

discursive dynamics which considers the diverse voices of the participants (we will

think), but then dismisses these voices (I'll present) and concludes stating that there is

"one way" to plan the activities. The controversial question is at the end of the

statement.

To sum up, F2₃ anticipates what had been done, without allowing the

coordinator to have space to describe the action, to present the next task. In this

sequence, no possible learning was created, since the authoritative discourse requires

the recognition of the other without the possibility of defense.

In Bakhtin's view, the areas of voice use are reduced, and even when F2 (in F2₅)

says, "do you want to think about why you think she was thinking when she did it?"

what we effectively have is what was said earlier, "Before I tell her the criteria." In

other words, the criteria had previously been established, unquestionable truths, which

would interpose those presented by the participants if they would encourage them to do

so. In a Vygotskian perspective, this discursive dynamics does not create a dialectic

relationship between the participants who favored new moves in the ZPD. The

contradiction is not established, therefore, preventing the negotiation of meanings.

Final Thoughts

The discussion presented here aimed to highlight discursive ways of meaning

production in contexts of teacher education founded on the Vygotskian and Bakhtinian

perspective, taking as crucial (1) the importance of the ways to conduct meaning

negotiation and of contradictions and socio-historically located conflicts, characteristic

of the dialectical movement; (2) the relevant role of internally persuasive discourse as

the generator of propitious contexts for the development of argumentative processes in a

critical collaborative manner.

The examples were selected to show researchers the central importance of

courses for educators to create a discursive dynamics that allows understanding of the

relationships established among the participants. The focus is to understand if and how

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participants to understand themselves and others in interactions. Based on Vygotsky,

the focus, therefore, lies on building critical - collaborative relationships so that all

participants understand their experiences, concepts and values, and situate them in a

social, historical, cultural and political framework that enables development.

The discussion, elucidated by the theoretical perspective, shows that an

argumentative context in teacher education can be organized in different discursive

ways, from which different results to participants derive, as revealed in the analysis

presented here. It‟s important to consider that the discursive dynamics based on the

internally persuasive discourse - for its organization favors the presence and

interweaving of diverse voices-, allowed participants to progress towards the production

of shared meanings, expanding the ways of reasoning and reframing training practices.

In contrast, authoritative speech closed negotiating possibilities, alienated the

participants involved, leading them to repeat what was considered authoritative,

neutralizing their own voices.

From the point of view of the construction of spaces for the development of

argumentation and negotiation/critical collaboration, the importance of strengthening

the role of authoritative and internally persuasive discourse is worth highlighting, for, as

we have seen, it is in the interconnection of these two discourses that training practices

occur, and it is precisely through them that participants develop critical modes of

participation.

Although this article has analyzed only two examples of teacher education

contexts, the deliberate focus on authoritative and internally persuasive discourse

favored the understanding of how the relationships between trainers and educators may

or may not trigger the negotiation of meanings. In the first context of the research,

marked by an internally persuasive discourse, participants showed how, despite having

different understandings of educational theories and practices, they, during the

discursive dynamic, articulated ways of thinking and appropriating the voices of others

to construct meaning. It was possible to observe how every interaction, “full of

transmissions and interpretations of other people‟s words” (BAKHTIN, 1981, p.338),

was constituted into strategy thinking for the participants, providing them with contexts

to question, agree, or disagree with each other. On the word of the other, as Bakhtin

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Such discourse is of decisive significance in the evolution of an individual consciousness: (consciousness awakens to independent ideological life precisely in a world of alien discourses surrounding it, and from which it cannot initially separate itself; the process of distinguishing between one's own and another's discourse, between one's own and another's thought, is activated rather late in development. When thought begins to work in an independent, experimenting and discriminating way, what first occurs is a separation between internally persuasive discourse and authoritarian enforced discourse, along with a reaction of those congeries of discourses that do not matter to us, that do not touch us (1981, p.345).

As for the authoritative discourse, better characterized in the second context

presented here, it makes the use of the voices of the participants difficult, eliminating

inconsistencies and controversial points, minimizing the possibility for responsiveness.

Although both - the internally persuasive discourse and authoritative discourse –

are present in the discourse of training, it is important, as already mentioned above, that

the researcher beaware of the sole occurrence of authoritative discourse.

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Translated by Ângela Cavenagh Temudo Lessa –cavenagh@uol.com.br

Received November 23,2013